Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Tánaiste will accept that those figures are incredibly concerning. When this Government came into office, it inherited a crisis in terms of the numbers in the Defence Forces. The numbers at that point were 8,659. When the Tánaiste assumed the role of Minister, that number had reduced to 7,966. If I recall the figure he gave correctly, it now stands at 7,550. The trend has not changed at all. While recruitment is ongoing and we welcome the initiatives that have been taken and we wish that process well, there is an elephant in the room. As well as having a recruitment crisis, there is, above all, a retention crisis. It is clear from the figures given that more people are leaving in any given year than are being recruited. Does the Tánaiste acknowledge that? Does he have any retention-specific measures to propose?

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